Compassionate Care
by Beguile
Summary: "Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive." Dalai Lama Or: Will finds out who maintained his facial hair while he was in the hospital and it's only a lot creepy in the nicest possible way.


Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: "Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive." ~Dalai Lama

Or: Will finds out who maintained his facial hair while he was in the hospital and it's only a lot creepy in the nicest possible way.

Author's Notes: The images of Will in the hospital from the trailer show him looking well groomed. I had an explanation for that cleanly shaved neck of his. This might be part of a series, but about the only story you need to read before this is _L'enfer, C'est Les Autres_ which is where Will and Charlotte become acquainted.

This is light-hearted, fluffy, and a little cracky at times. Hope you enjoy! Cheers!

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Compassionate Care

"Full Bloom Floral. Charlotte speaking, how may I help you?"

Will cuts right to the chase: "Have you been shaving my beard?"

"Yes."

Not, "Who's speaking?" Not, "No, that would be insane." Not even a moment's hesitation. Just, "Yes." And then, even more unsettlingly, "Of course I have. Who else was going to do it?"

Will hopes she's playing games with him, "Do you know who this is?"

"With an opener like, 'Have you been shaving my beard?' Yes, of course I know who this is. You don't think I just shave anybody's beard, do you? I have standards."

The painkillers make it easier to deal with her sarcasm. Will can just roll with the punches, "You have a long list of people looking for shaves, do you?"

"You don't?" Charlotte challenges him.

"Well, having been comatose for…" he doesn't know. Nobody will tell him. That can't be good, "…a while now, I'm sure that all my acquaintances have found other shavers."

"Not me."

"No, not you," Will drifts. "The nurses told me someone was coming around every couple of days."

"The hospital is right on my walk home. When I decide to take a half-hour detour. By bus."

Will's warmed by more than just the morphine at that, "Thank you."

She makes it sound like just anyone would have done the same. "You're welcome."

"It's still creepy."

"That's what you said yesterday too."

"I said something?" Will accidently presses a hand against his bandages and ends up wincing.

Charlotte doesn't notice the pained tone in his breathing. "You say a lot of things," she continues pleasantly. "I mean, they took you off intubation but upped your morphine, so you just started chatting."

"What do I say?"

"Something about a reckoning? Something about Lecter? Little bits about fishing and someone named Abigail…honestly, I tune most of it out."

He feels like he should thank her for that too but doesn't want to acknowledge all the nonsense he's spewing in his drugged stupor. Charlotte has already crossed an uncomfortable boundary. Will has no desire of doing the same in her direction. He changes the subject. "I suppose I have you to thank for the flowers as well."

"Some of them." Will almost calls her bluff but she saves him the trouble. "Okay, most of them, but it's your fault my card ended up circulating at the FBI, not mine. I'm only responsible for the peonies."

He doesn't know which peonies from how many arrangements have been sent.

"Next week it was going to be geraniums," her smile broadens audibly. "Marigolds seemed just a little too cheerful what with you being…_you know_ and all."

Will swallows. Charlotte's speech still has the force of a sledgehammer no matter how delicate she's trying to be. As if sensing – for the first time ever, Will's betting – that she's committed some kind of social faux pas, or at the very least might be committing one, Charlotte says something remarkable. "Look, I'll stop if you want."

When he doesn't answer immediately she keeps talking. "I promise I wasn't coming with any kind of agenda except to give you gorgeous flowers, shave your beard, and maybe scam on your hospital food."

His eyes widen in revelation, "You're the one who eats my pudding."

"I said maybe!" Charlotte mutters something about liking pudding and him not really being conscious at all when she's there. Especially since he doesn't remember. "Which means it barely happened…" she adds. "I just got to thinking about how crummy I would feel to be bedridden and alone, having pictures circulating in the tabloids of me at my most vulnerable-"

Will winces. For once, Charlotte's candor comes to his rescue when she ends by saying, "- all the while sporting this wicked-unruly facial hair. And since you actually ended up paying for that incredibly beautiful bouquet I arranged for your doctor friend, not to mention facilitating my becoming the FBI's unofficial florist, I figured I could go and help you out…and occasionally eat your pudding.

"But seeing as how you're aware now, I can stop," Charlotte says, meaning it, at least as much as she means anything else that comes out of her mouth. "No more beard shaving or book reading or sponge baths…"

His horror is stronger than the morphine. "You bathed me?"

"Okay, it was one time! And I did it with my eyes closed." Will breathes a sigh of relief just in time for Charlotte to correct herself. "Mostly closed. The entire…almost the whole time. I swear I saw nothing."

She'll say more if he doesn't stop her. "If there's anything else, I don't want to know."

"You just didn't seem to have anybody!" she confesses. "After you were acquitted, you were just there, by yourself, all…tubey and unconscious. The nurses said your family was gone, your friends were all in that house with you – one of them was dead! – and they weren't even sure-"

"Charlotte."

"-you were going to make it!"

"Charlotte, I-"

"I wasn't even there to see you! I was delivering flowers to someone else!"

"Charlotte!"

"Yes?! WHAT?!"

"Charlotte, please stop shouting."

"Sorry," she takes several calming breaths. "Sorry. I just hear all this creepy stuff coming out of my mouth, and it didn't seem at all creepy at the time. Which just makes it seem creepier now. I'm sorry."

The apology hasn't a trace of guile in it. Will can't believe this is the same woman he ordered flowers from so many months ago. She'd grown up. How the hell she managed that feat is beyond him, but the proof was still on the other line: Charlotte has grown up. He rubs a hand over his injury, breathing through another wave of breakthrough pain. "Charlotte, you don't have to be sorry. I…I appreciate it. Creepy as it is, I do appreciate it. So thank you."

She settles, "You're welcome. Thank you for not taking it the bad way."

"Believe me, Charlotte," the heat from his wounds cuts him anew, "nothing you do could ever be in a bad way."

"Thanks," she sighs. The white noise of the telephone stands between them for several moments afterwards. Charlotte, true to form, breaks it, "Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Graham?"

"What's in season right now?"

"Whatever you want."

"Well, as my designated floriographer, what do you recommend?"

"Well, what are you trying to say? Who are you trying to say it too? I'm not a miracle worker."

Now it's Will's turn to sigh, and this time, it's exhausted from more than just the pain killers. "I want you to make something beautiful," he says, staring into the pool of peonies on his night table. "Something that nobody else would make."

"O-kay," Charlotte's getting shifty and suspicious. "Am I working with a budget?"

"No," Will lets his eyes close. He can practically hear her hummingbird heartbeat through the phone. "No budget. Sky's the limit. But whatever it is has to be exquisite."

"Oh, yes, yes! Yes, I can do exquisite. But!" she puts her foot down. Literally. Will can hear it hit the floor. "But exquisite requires an actual card."

"What's that one you sent me? For a very-"

"For a Very Special Person," Charlotte states proudly. "Are these for your doctor friend again? Oh, are you two no longer just friends?"

"No," Will's hand falls away from his wound.

The suspense is killing her. "Who is this to?"

He leaves her hanging for just a moment longer before saying, "To my floriographer Charlotte."

Silence. The absolute deadest silence on the planet. She hasn't dropped her pen or indulged in her histrionics. For a second, Will thinks that she's hung up until a small, shuddering sound greets him from the other line. His eyes close; he continues speaking.

"Thank you…for everything. Even the things I never want you to speak about," and then, just in case it's not clear enough, "Ever. Sincerely, Will Graham. Esquire."

The quiet persists. Will can't even hear the sound of her breathing. "Did you get all that?" he asks. His shout into the dark is barely acknowledged. "Charlotte?"

There's unshed tears in her voice when she finally manages to speak. Charlotte is choking back tears. Badly. "You…you don't have to say nice things to me."

"You don't have to do nice things for me," Will agrees. "Consider us even."

"I was being creepy…" she moans.

"Yes, but…" there is a but. He knows there is one. It takes a second for his morphine-addled mind to conceive of it. "But I have met some genuinely terrifying people. Mean, malicious, creepy. It gives me a rare appreciation for…for nice-creepy."

Charlotte's smile washes over him through the phone. "I…am going to send myself…a special order," she declares.

"You do that."

She coughs to cover up her happiness, to transition back into business mode. "Will that be all, Mr. Graham?"

"Yes, one last thing. I think I'm going to regret saying this-"

"Then don't say it! Don't ruin this! I'm buying orchids!"

"-but you don't have to stop coming, if you don't want. When I'm conscious, this time."

Charlotte's energy radiates through the phone. "Do you mean that?"

_Take it back, take it back, take it back..._ "Yes. Yes, I mean that."

She makes a strange, high-pitched squealing sound just loud enough that the roots of Will's teeth sting. He sets his jaw, "But you are not allowed to eat my pudding anymore."

Her squealing stops, "I told you not to say anything."

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Happy reading!


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